Give Peace a Park

Ten Years On and Plans for Peace Park at Sari Club Bali Bombing Location Seem Increasingly Remote

(10/14/2012) During days marked with special ceremonies commemorating the 202 people who died in the terrorist attacks of October 12, 2002, a controversy has re-emerged over the disposition of the vacant lot, the former location of the Sari Club before the terrorist attack.

Proposed as a “peace park” to commemorate the 202 who died at the that night at the Sari Club and the nearby Paddy’s Bar, efforts to come to terms on a acceptable price for the site have been unsuccessful, leaving the space to be used as an off-street parking area with the surrounding walls bearing hand-scrawled admonitions in Indonesian not to urinate in the area.

That the park remains unrealized and the grounds, considered sacred by many surviving family members of those who died in 2002, is used for parking and an outdoor toilet by both local and Australian tourists, has angered many.

Quoted by Jakarta Globe, David Marshall, whose father died in the bombing, said: “The urinating is totally disgraceful and disrespectful to the people who lost their lives on that fateful night . We’ve got people getting drunk on the sites where our loved ones died. We have people parking cars and motorbikes, and selling drinks on a spot which in history will go down as one of the worst times ever in Kuta, and for Australia, and the other nations involved.”

An Australian-based Bali Peace Park Association has offered US$1 million for the property, with the owner reportedly seeking a figure seven times that amount.